


All Art Is Quite Useless

by semele



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Blow Jobs, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-30
Updated: 2012-11-30
Packaged: 2017-11-19 21:06:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/577660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semele/pseuds/semele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Future!fic (no s4 spoilers). He finds her in Europe, in a small town he's never heard of before, and doesn't care to hear about ever again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Art Is Quite Useless

He finds her in Europe, in a small town he's never heard of before, and doesn't care to hear about ever again. It's November, so Elena is sitting in an old, dark cafe, drinking coffee with nutmeg and reading Great Expectations. Damon hasn't seen her for five years, but he doesn't feel any need to say hello. He just orders himself a glass of mulled wine, pulls a book out of his pocket and sits at Elena's table.

Europe suits her, he notices as he takes the first sip, the chill and the wind bring out colors on her cheeks and make her eyes glow brighter. Elena Gilbert, the wanderer, a different name in every town. She's dressed down, with her hair tied in a neat ponytail, no need to attract unnecessary attention. She wants to see without being seen, to read and listen and observe. Damon is pretty sure he's the first person in a long while to even notice her. Elena likes to be invisible, but he's allowed to watch her whenever he wants to. 

She needs someone to look at her from time to time.

“They make wicked muffins here,” she acknowledges him finally as she turns the page. “And if you're reading that Jane Eyre crap again, you might as well make yourself useful and get me one.”

***

He follows her home that night and goes straight to the kitchen. Elena has a drawer full of spices she only uses for coffee. She's 40 years old, but she still can't cook anything more complicated than a stir fry. As she starts looking for wine glasses in one of the cupboards, Damon puts the apples he bought in the morning into a casserole dish, fills them with nuts and honey, sprinkles with ginger. Elena will probably make him bake her an apple pie in the morning.

“Do you compel humans to cook for you when I'm not here?” he asks, half in jest.

“I try to,” says Elena with a sigh. “But most of them never get it right.”

Damon smiles as he finishes chopping almonds, he knows exactly what she means. After he puts the apples in the oven, he takes a battered copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray out of his suitcase and sits comfortably on a low stool in Elena's kitchen. She gives him a glass of wine and Damon relaxes, finally he can do this right, it's been five years since the last time he's done this right.

“The artist is the creator of beautiful things,” he begins in a calm voice, almost feeling Elena's smile on his back. He doesn't think she understands why he reads to her, but she lets him do it all the same, picks books and passages herself if she's feeling generous. Damon knows she prefers Virginia Woolf, likes his voice flowing swiftly through a stream of consciousness, but it's always Wilde for the first night. Elena doesn't question it as if she understood what it means to him; _the highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography._

By the end of second paragraph Elena's hands are massaging his shoulders in slow circles, just the sensation he needed, Elena's firm touch adding to dim light and the smell of apples, marvelous simplicity, _books are well written, or badly written, that is all_. She places an open-mouthed kiss on his neck and, still behind him, starts unbuttoning his shirt, he'll probably be naked by the end of the preface.

But Elena has a different plan for him, she leaves his shirt on his shoulders, not wanting to disturb his reading, and moves to the front. She motions him to spread his knees, and when he does, she sits between them, cross-legged, and unzips his pants.

“The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass,” he informs her with glee.

Elena chuckles and takes him deep into her mouth without warning, just to make a point. She chuckles when his breath catches in his throat, but Damon doesn't want to give her the satisfaction, _no artist desires to prove anything_.

Apparently she wants him to continue reading, because she tunes in to the pace of his voice. She probably knows this passage by heart, and remembers exactly when Damon will make pauses, caresses him with her tongue in long, lazy sweeps, reaching the tip in time for every full stop, _no artist is ever mo-oh-rbid_ , and then back down, _the artist can express everything_. Damon knows he won't last long, but that's okay, he only has a few sentences left. He'll return the favor after dessert, when Elena's fingers in his hair are sticky with baked apples and he still has the taste of honey on his tongue, but for now, he loses himself in words and sensation, _those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril_.

He's getting closer and closer, and tries to only bite his lip between sentences. Funny how, before he met Elena, he used to imagine love as a driving force, an ultimate purpose. This is what he got instead, a girl sitting on the floor, a book they've already read a hundred times and food neither of them needs almost ready in the oven. He doesn't have to look at the page to finish the preface, so he closes his eyes and leans forward, hides his face in Elena's hair.

“We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it,” he gasps with admiration and explodes, overwhelmed by the beauty that surrounds him, Elena's skillful fingers stroking his hip.

“All art is quite useless,” she finishes for him.


End file.
